Tales of the Jazz Age, stories by F Scott Fitzgerald

Unclassified Masterpieces - The Lees of Happiness

If you should look through the files of old magazines for the firstyears of the present century you would find, sandwiched in between thestories of Richard Harding Davis and Frank Norris and others longsince dead, the work of one Jeffrey Curtain: a novel or two, andperhaps three or four dozen short stories. You could, if you wereinterested, follow them along until, say, 1908, when they suddenlydisappeared.

When you had read them all you would have been quite sure that herewere no masterpieces--here were passably amusing stories, a bit out ofdate now, but doubtless the sort that would then have whiled away adreary half hour in a dental office. The man who did them was of goodintelligence, talented, glib, probably young. In the samples of hiswork you found there would have been nothing to stir you to more thana faint interest in the whims of life--no deep interior laughs, nosense of futility or hint of tragedy.

After reading them you would yawn and put the number back in thefiles, and perhaps, if you were in some library reading-room, youwould decide that by way of variety you would look at a newspaper ofthe period and see whether the Japs had taken Port Arthur. But if byany chance the newspaper you had chosen was the right one and hadcrackled open at the theatrical page, your eyes would have beenarrested and held, and for at least a minute you would have forgottenPort Arthur as quickly as you forgot Chateau Thierry. For you would,by this fortunate chance, be looking at the portrait of an exquisitewoman.

Those were tie days of "Florodora" and of sextets, of pinched-inwaists and blown-out sleeves, of almost bustles and absolute balletskirts, but here, without doubt, disguised as she might be by theunaccustomed stiffness and old fashion of her costume, was a butterflyof butterflies. Here was the gayety of the period--the soft wine ofeyes, the songs that flurried hearts, the toasts and tie bouquets, thedances and the dinners. Here was a Venus of the hansom, cab, theGibson girl in her glorious prime. Here was...

...here was you. Find by looking at the name beneath, one RoxanneMilbank, who had been chorus girl and understudy in "The Daisy Chain,"but who, by reason of an excellent performance when the star wasindisposed, had gained a leading part.

You would look again--and wonder. Why you had never heard of her. Whydid her name not linger in popular songs and vaudeville jokes andcigar bands, and the memory of that gay old uncle of yours along withLillian Russell and Stella Mayhew and Anna Held? RoxanneMilbank-whither had she gone? What dark trap-door had opened suddenlyand swallowed her up? Her name was certainly not in last Sunday'ssupplement on the list of actresses married to English noblemen. Nodoubt she was dead--poor beautiful young lady--and quite forgotten.

I am hoping too much. I am having you stumble on Jeffrey Curtains'sstories and Roxanne Milbank's picture. It would be incredible that youshould find a newspaper item six months later, a single item twoinches by four, which informed the public of the marriage, veryquietly, of Miss Roxanne Milbank, who had been on tour with "The DaisyChain," to Mr. Jeffrey Curtain, the popular author. "Mrs. Curtain," itadded dispassionately, "will retire from the stage."

It was a marriage of love. He was sufficiently spoiled to be charming;she was ingenuous enough to be irresistible. Like two floating logsthey met in a head-on rush, caught, and sped along together. Yet hadJeffrey Curtain kept at scrivening for twoscore years he could nothave put a quirk into one of his stories weirder than the quirk thatcame into his own life. Had Roxanne Milbank played three dozen partsand filled five thousand houses she could never have had a role withmore happiness and more despair than were in the fate prepared forRoxanne Curtain.

For a year they lived in hotels, travelled to California, to Alaska,to Florida, to Mexico, loved and quarrelled gently, and gloried in thegolden triflings of his wit with her beauty--they were young andgravely passionate; they demanded everything and then yieldedeverything again in ecstasies of unselfishness and pride. She lovedthe swift tones of his voice and his frantic, if unfounded jealousy.He loved her dark radiance, the white irises of her eyes, the warm,lustrous enthusiasm of her smile.

"Don't you like her?" he would demand rather excitedly and shyly."Isn't she wonderful? Did you ever see--"

"Yes," they would answer, grinning. "She's a wonder. You're lucky."

The year passed. They tired of hotels. They bought an old house andtwenty acres near the town of Marlowe, half an hour from Chicago;bought a little car, and moved out riotously with a pioneeringhallucination that would have confounded Balboa.

"Your room will be here!" they cried in turn.

--And then:

"And my room here!"

"And the nursery here when we have children."

"And we'll build a sleeping porch--oh, next year."

They moved out in April. In July Jeffrey's closest friend, HarryCromwell same to spend a week--they met him at the end of the longlawn and hurried him proudly to the house.

Harry was married also. His wife had had a baby some six months beforeand was still recuperating at her mother's in New York. Roxanne hadgathered from Jeffrey that Harry's wife was not as attractive asHarry--Jeffrey had met her once and considered her--"shallow." ButHarry had been married nearly two years and was apparantly happy, soJeffrey guessed that she was probably all right.

"I'm making biscuits," chattered Roxanne gravely. "Can you wife makebiscuits? The cook is showing me how. I think every woman should knowhow to make biscuits. It sounds so utterly disarming. A woman who canmake biscuits can surely do no----"

"You'll have to come out here and live," said Jeffrey. "Get a placeout in the country like us, for you and Kitty."

"You don't know Kitty. She hates the country. She's got to have hertheatres and vaudevilles."

They were at the porch steps now and Roxanne made a brisk gesturetoward a dilapidated structure on the right.

"The garage," she announced. "It will also be Jeffrey's writing-roomwithin the month. Meanwhile dinner is at seven. Meanwhile to that Iwill mix a cocktail."

The two men ascended to the second floor--that is, they ascendedhalf-way, for at the first landing Jeffrey dropped his guest'ssuitcase and in a cross between a query and a cry exclaimed:

"For God's sake, Harry, how do you like her?"

"We will go up-stairs," answered his guest, "and we will shut thedoor."

Half an hour later as they were sitting together in the libraryRoxanne reissued from the kitchen, bearing before her a pan ofbiscuits. Jeffrey and Harry rose.

"They're beautiful, dear," said the husband, intensely.

"Exquisite," murmured Harry.

Roxanne beamed.

"Taste one. I couldn't bear to touch them before you'd seen them alland I can't bear to take them back until I find what they taste like."

"Like manna, darling."

Simultaneously the two men raised the biscuits to their lips, nibbledtentatively. Simultaneously they tried to change the subject. ButRoxanne undeceived, set down the pan and seized a biscuit. After asecond her comment rang out with lugubrious finality:

During dinner the twilight faltered into dusk, and later it was astarry dark outside, filled and permeated with the frail gorgeousnessof Roxanne's white dress and her tremulous, low laugh.

--Such a little girl she is, thought Harry. Not as old as Kitty.

He compared the two. Kitty--nervous without being sensitive,temperamental without temperament, a woman who seemed to flit andnever light--and Roxanne, who was as young as spring night, and summedup in her own adolescent laughter.

--A good match for Jeffrey, he thought again. Two very young people,the sort who'll stay very young until they suddenly find themselvesold.

Harry thought these things between his constant thoughts about Kitty,He was depressed about Kitty. It seemed to him that she was wellenough to come back to Chicago and bring his little son. He wasthinking vaguely of Kitty when he said good-night to his friend's wifeand his friend at the foot of the stairs.

"You're our first real house guest," called Roxanne after him. "Aren'tyou thrilled and proud?"

When he was out of sight around the stair corner she turned toJeffrey, who was standing beside her resting his hand on the end ofthe banister.

"Are you tired, my dearest?"

Jeffrey rubbed the centre of his forehead with his fingers.

"A little. How did you know?"

"Oh, how could I help knowing about you?"

"It's a headache," he said moodily. "Splitting. I'll take someaspirin."

She reached over and snapped out the light, and with his arm tightabout her waist they walked up the stairs together.

II

Harry's week passed. They drove about the dreaming lanes or idled incheerful inanity upon lake or lawn. In the evening Roxanne, sittinginside, played to them while the ashes whitened on the glowing ends oftheir cigars. Then came a telegram from Kitty saying that she wantedHarry to come East and get her, so Roxanne and Jeffrey were left alonein that privacy of which they never seemed to tire.

"Alone" thrilled them again. They wandered about the house, eachfeeling intimately the presence of the other; they sat on the sameside of the table like honeymooners; they were intensely absorbed,intensely happy.

The town of Marlowe, though a comparatively old settlement, had onlyrecently acquired a "society." Five or six years before, alarmed atthe smoky swelling of Chicago, two or three young married couples,"bungalow people," had moved out; their friends had followed. TheJeffrey Curtains found an already formed "set" prepared to welcome:them; a country club, ballroom, and golf links yawned for them, andthere were bridge parties, and poker parties, and parties where theydrank beer, and parties where they drank nothing at all.

It was at a poker party that they found themselves a week afterHarry's departure. There were two tables, and a good proportion of theyoung wives were smoking and shouting their bets, and being verydaringly mannish for those days.

Roxanne had left the game early and taken to perambulation; shewandered into the pantry and found herself some grape juice--beer gaveher a headache--and then passed from table to table, looking overshoulders at the hands, keeping an eye on Jeffrey and being pleasantlyunexcited and content. Jeffrey, with intense concentration, wasraising a pile of chips of all colors, and Roxanne knew by thedeepened wrinkle between his eyes that he was interested. She liked tosee him interested in small things.

She crossed over quietly and sat down on the arm of his chair.

She sat there five minutes, listening to the sharp intermittentcomments of the men and the chatter of the women, which rose from thetable like soft smoke--and yet scarcely hearing either. Then quiteinnocently she reached out her hand, intending to place it onJeffrey's shoulder--as it touched him he started of a sudden, gave ashort grunt, and, sweeping back his arm furiously, caught her aglancing blow on her elbow.

There was a general gasp. Roxanne regained her balance, gave a littlecry, and rose quickly to her feet. It had been the greatest shock ofher life. This, from Jeffrey, the heart of kindness, ofconsideration--this instinctively brutal gesture.

The gasp became a silence. A dozen eyes were turned on Jeffrey, wholooked up as though seeing Roxanne for the first time. An expressionof bewilderment settled on his face.

"Why--Roxanne----" he said haltingly.

Into a dozen minds entered a quick suspicion, a rumor of scandal.Could it be that behind the scenes with this couple, apparently so inlove, lurked some curious antipathy? Why else this streak of fire,across such a cloudless heaven?

"Jeffrey!"--Roxanne's voice was pleading--startled and horrified, sheyet knew that it was a mistake. Not once did it occur to her to blamehim or to resent it. Her word was a trembling supplication--"Tell me,Jeffrey," it said, "tell Roxanne, your own Roxanne."

"Why, Roxanne--" began Jeffrey again. The bewildered look changed topain. He was clearly as startled as she. "I didn't intend that," hewent on; "you startled me. You--I felt as if some one were attackingme. I--how--why, how idiotic!"

"Jeffrey!" Again the word was a prayer, incense offered up to a highGod through this new and unfathomable darkness.

They were both on their feet, they were saying good-by, faltering,apologizing, explaining. There was no attempt to pass it off easily.That way lay sacrilege. Jeffrey had not been feeling well, they said.He had become nervous. Back of both their minds was the unexplainedhorror of that blow--the marvel that there had been for an instantsomething between them--his anger and her fear--and now to both asorrow, momentary, no doubt, but to be bridged at once, at once, whilethere was yet time. Was that swift water lashing under their feet--thefierce glint of some uncharted chasm?

Out in their car under the harvest moon he talked brokenly. It wasjust--incomprehensible to him, he said. He had been thinking of thepoker game--absorbed--and the touch on his shoulder had seemed like anattack. An attack! He clung to that word, flung it up as a shield. Hehad hated what touched him. With the impact of his hand it had gone,that--nervousness. That was all he knew.

Both their eyes filled with tears and they whispered love there underthe broad night as the serene streets of Marlowe sped by. Later, whenthey went to bed, they were quite calm. Jeffrey was to take a week offall work--was simply to loll, and sleep, and go on long walks untilthis nervousness left him. When they had decided this safety settleddown upon Roxanne. The pillows underhead became soft and friendly; thebed on which they lay seemed wide, and white, and sturdy beneath theradiance that streamed in at the window.

Five days later, in the first cool of late afternoon, Jeffrey pickedup an oak chair and sent it crashing through his own front window.Then he lay down on the couch like a child, weeping piteously andbegging to die. A blood clot the size of a marble had broken hisbrain.

III

There is a sort of waking nightmare that sets in sometimes when onehas missed a sleep or two, a feeling that comes with extreme fatigueand a new sun, that the quality of the life around has changed. It isa fully articulate conviction that somehow the existence one is thenleading is a branch shoot of life and is related to life only as amoving picture or a mirror--that the people, and streets, and housesare only projections from a very dim and chaotic past. It was in sucha state that Roxanne found herself during the first months ofJeffrey's illness. She slept only when she was utterly exhausted; sheawoke under a cloud. The long, sober-voiced consultations, the faintaura of medicine in the halls, the sudden tiptoeing in a house thathad echoed to many cheerful footsteps, and, most of ail, Jeffrey'swhite face amid the pillows of the bed they had shared--these thingssubdued her and made her indelibly older. The doctors held out hope,but that was all. A long rest, they said, and quiet. So responsibilitycame to Roxanne. It was she who paid the bills, pored over hisbank-book, corresponded with his publishers. She was in the kitchenconstantly. She learned from the nurse how to prepare his meals andafter the first month took complete charge of the sick-room. She hadhad to let the nurse go for reasons of economy. One of the two coloredgirls left at the same time. Roxanne was realizing that they had beenliving from short story to short story.

The most frequent visitor was Harry Cromwell. He had been shocked anddepressed by the news, and though his wife was now living with him inChicago he found time to come out several times a month. Roxanne foundhis sympathy welcome--there was some quality of suffering in the man,some inherent pitifulness that made her comfortable when he was near.Roxanne's nature had suddenly deepened. She felt sometimes that withJeffrey she was losing her children also, those children that now mostof all she needed and should have had.

It was six months after Jeffrey's collapse and when the nightmare hadfaded, leaving not the old world but a new one, grayer and colder,that she wait to see Harry's wife. Finding herself in Chicago with anextra hour before train time, she decided out of courtesy to call.

As she stepped inside the door she had an immediate impression thatthe apartment was very like some place she had seen before--and almostinstantly she remembered a round-the-corner bakery of her childhood, abakery full of rows and rows of pink frosted cakes--a stuffy pink,pink as a food, pink triumphant, vulgar, and odious.

And this apartment was like that. It was pink. It smelled pink!

Mrs. Cromwell, attired in a wrapper of pink and black, opened thedoor. Her hair was yellow, heightened, Roxanne imagined by a dash ofperoxide in the rinsing water every week. Her eyes were a thin waxenblue--she was pretty and too consciously graceful. Her cordiality wasstrident and intimate, hostility melted so quickly to hospitality thatit seemed they were both merely in the face and voice--never touchingnor touched by the deep core of egotism beneath.

But to Roxanne these things were secondary; her eyes were caught andheld in uncanny fascination by the wrapper. It was vilely unclean.From its lowest hem up four inches it was sheerly dirty with the bluedust of the floor; for the next three inches it was gray--then itshaded off into its natural color, which, was--pink. It was dirty atthe sleeves, too, and at the collar--and when the woman turned to leadthe way into the parlor, Roxanne was sure that her neck was dirty.

A one-sided rattle of conversation began. Mrs. Cromwell becameexplicit about her likes and dislikes, her head, her stomach, herteeth, her apartment--avoiding with a sort of insolent meticulousnessany inclusion of Roxanne with life, as if presuming that Roxanne,having been dealt a blow, wished life to be carefully skirted.

Roxanne smiled. That kimono! That neck!

After five minutes a little boy toddled into the parlor--a dirtylittle boy clad in dirty pink rompers. His face was smudgy--Roxannewanted to take him into her lap and wipe his nose; other parts in theof his head needed attention, his tiny shoes were kicked out at thetoes. Unspeakable!

"He will get dirty. Look at that face!" She held her head on one sideand regarded it critically.

"Isn't he a _darling?_" repeated Roxanne.

"Look at his rompers," frowned Mrs. Cromwell.

"He needs a change, don't you, George?"

George stared at her curiously. To his mind the word rompersconnotated a garment extraneously smeared, as this one.

"I tried to make him look respectable this morning," complained Mrs.Cromwell as one whose patience had been sorely tried, "and I found hedidn't have any more rompers--so rather than have him go round withoutany I put him back in those--and his face--"

"How many pairs has he?" Roxanne's voice was pleasantly curious, "Howmany feather fans have you?" she might have asked.

"Can you really? I had no idea. He ought to have plenty, but I haven'thad a minute all week to send the laundry out." Then, dismissing thesubject as irrelevant--"I must show you some things--"

They rose and Roxanne followed her past an open bathroom door whosegarment-littered floor showed indeed that the laundry hadn't been sentout for some time, into another room that was, so to speak, thequintessence of pinkness. This was Mrs. Cromwell's room.

Here the Hostess opened a closet door and displayed before' Roxanne'seyes an amazing collection of lingerie.

There were dozens of filmy marvels of lace and silk, all clean,unruffled, seemingly not yet touched. On hangers beside them werethree new evening dresses.

"I have some beautiful things," said Mrs. Cromwell, "but not much of achance to wear them. Harry doesn't care about going out." Spite creptinto her voice. "He's perfectly content to let me play nursemaid andhousekeeper all day and loving wife in the evening."

She felt that her hands were trembling. She wanted to put them on thiswoman and shake her--shake her. She wanted her locked up somewhere andset to scrubbing floors.

"Beautiful," she repeated, "and I just came in for a moment."

"Well, I'm sorry Harry isn't here."

They moved toward the door.

"--and, oh," said Roxanne with an effort--yet her voice was stillgentle and her lips were smiling--"I think it's Argile's where you canget those rompers. Good-by."

It was not until she had reached the station and bought her ticket toMarlowe that Roxanne realized it was the first five minutes in sixmonths that her mind had been off Jeffrey.

IV

A week later Harry appeared at Marlowe, arrived unexpectedly at fiveo'clock, and coming up the walk sank into a porch chair in a state ofexhaustion. Roxanne herself had had a busy day and was worn out. Thedoctors were coming at five-thirty, bringing a celebrated nervespecialist from New York. She was excited and thoroughly depressed,but Harry's eyes made her sit down beside him.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, Roxanne," he denied. "I came to see how Jeff was doing.Don't you bother about me."

"Harry," insisted Roxanne, "there's something the matter."

"Nothing," he repeated. "How's Jeff?"

Anxiety darkened her face.

"He's a little worse, Harry. Doctor Jewett has come on from New York.They thought he could tell me something definite. He's going to tryand find whether this paralysis has anything to do with the originalblood clot."

Harry rose.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said jerkily. "I didn't know you expected aconsultation. I wouldn't have come. I thought I'd just rock on yourporch for an hour--"

"Sit down," she commanded.

Harry hesitated.

"Sit down, Harry, dear boy." Her kindness flooded out now--envelopedhim. "I know there's something the matter. You're white as a sheet.I'm going to get you a cool bottle of beer."

All at once he collapsed into his chair and covered his face with hishands.

"I can't make her happy," he said slowly. "I've tried and I've tried.This morning we had some words about breakfast--I'd been getting mybreakfast down town--and--well, just after I went to the office sheleft the house, went East to her mother's with George and a suitcasefull of lace underwear."

"Harry!"

"And I don't know---"

There was a crunch on the gravel, a car turning into the drive.Roxanne uttered a little cry.

"It's Doctor Jewett."

"Oh, I'll---"

"You'll wait, won't you?" she interrupted abstractedly. He saw thathis problem had already died on the troubled surface of her mind.

There was an embarrassing minute of vague, elided introductions andthen Harry followed the party inside and watched them disappear up thestairs. He went into the library and sat down on the big sofa.

For an hour he watched the sun creep up the patterned folds of thechintz curtains. In the deep quiet a trapped wasp buzzing on theinside of the window pane assumed the proportions of a clamor. Fromtime to time another buzzing drifted down from up-stairs, resemblingseveral more larger wasps caught on larger window-panes. He heard lowfootfalls, the clink of bottles, the clamor of pouring water.

What had he and Roxanne done that life should deal these crashingblows to them? Up-stairs there was taking place a living inquest onthe soul of his friend; he was sitting here in a quiet room listeningto the plaint of a wasp, just as when he was a boy he had beencompelled by a strict aunt to sit hour-long on a chair and atone forsome misbehavior. But who had put him here? What ferocious aunt hadleaned out of the sky to make him atone for--what?

About Kitty he felt a great hopelessness. She was too expensive--thatwas the irremediable difficulty. Suddenly he hated her. He wanted tothrow her down and kick at her--to tell her she was a cheat and aleech--that she was dirty. Moreover, she must give him his boy.

He rose and began pacing up and down the room. Simultaneously he heardsome one begin walking along the hallway up-stairs in exact time withhim. He found himself wondering if they would walk in time until theperson reached the end of the hall.

Kitty had gone to her mother. God help her, what a mother to go to! Hetried to imagine the meeting: the abused wife collapsing upon themother's breast. He could not. That Kitty was capable of any deepgrief was unbelievable. He had gradually grown to think of her assomething unapproachable and callous. She would get a divorce, ofcourse, and eventually she would marry again. He began to considerthis. Whom would she marry? He laughed bitterly, stopped; a pictureflashed before him--of Kitty's arms around some man whose face hecould not see, of Kitty's lips pressed close to other lips in what wassurely: passion.

"God!" he cried aloud. "God! God! God!"

Then the pictures came thick and fast. The Kitty of this morningfaded; the soiled kimono rolled up and disappeared; the pouts, andrages, and tears all were washed away. Again she was Kitty Carr--KittyCarr with yellow hair and great baby eyes. Ah, she had loved him, shehad loved him.

After a while he perceived that something was amiss with him,something that had nothing to do with Kitty or Jeff, something of adifferent genre. Amazingly it burst on him at last; he was hungry.Simple enough! He would go into the kitchen in a moment and ask thecolored cook for a sandwich. After that he must go back to the city.

He paused at the wall, jerked at something round, and, fingering itabsently, put it to his mouth and tasted it as a baby tastes a brighttoy. His teeth closed on it--Ah!

She'd left that damn kimono, that dirty pink kimono. She might havehad the decency to take it with her, he thought. It would hang in thehouse like the corpse of their sick alliance. He would try to throw itaway, but he would never be able to bring himself to move it. It wouldbe like Kitty, soft and pliable, withal impervious. You couldn't moveKitty; you couldn't reach Kitty. There was nothing there to reach. Heunderstood that perfectly--he had understood it all along.

He reached to the wall for another biscuit and with an effort pulledit out, nail and all. He carefully removed the nail from the centre,wondering idly if he had eaten the nail with the first biscuit.Preposterous! He would have remembered--it was a huge nail. He felthis stomach. He must be very hungry. He considered--remembered--yesterday he had had no dinner. It was the girl's day out and Kittyhad lain in her room eating chocolate drops. She had said she felt"smothery" and couldn't bear having him near her. He had givenGeorge a bath and put him to bed, and then lain down on the couchintending to rest a minute before getting his own dinner. Therehe had fallen asleep and awakened about eleven, to find thatthere was nothing in the ice-box except a spoonful of potato salad.This he had eaten, together with some chocolate drops that he found onKitty's bureau. This morning he had breakfasted hurriedly down townbefore going to the office. But at noon, beginning to worry aboutKitty, he had decided to go home and take her out to lunch. After thatthere had been the note on his pillow. The pile of lingerie in thecloset was gone--and she had left instructions for sending her trunk.

He had never been so hungry, he thought.

At five o'clock, when the visiting nurse tiptoed down-stairs, he wassitting on the sofa staring at the carpet.

"Mr. Cromwell?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, Mrs. Curtain won't be able to see you at dinner. She's not wellShe told me to tell you that the cook will fix you something and thatthere's a spare bedroom."

"She's sick, you say?"

"She's lying down in her room. The consultation is just over."

"Did they--did they decide anything?"

"Yes," said the nurse softly. "Doctor Jewett says there's no hope. Mr.Curtain may live indefinitely, but he'll never see again or move againor think. He'll just breathe."

"Just breathe?"

"Yes."

For the first time the nurse noted that beside the writing-desk whereshe remembered that she had seen a line of a dozen curious roundobjects she had vaguely imagined to be some exotic form of decoration,there was now only one. Where the others had been, there was now aseries of little nail-holes.

Harry followed her glance dazedly and then rose to his feet.

"I don't believe I'll stay. I believe there's a train."

She nodded. Harry picked up his hat.

"Good-by," she said pleasantly.

"Good-by," he answered, as though talking to himself and, evidentlymoved by some involuntary necessity, he paused on his way to the doorand she saw him pluck the last object from the wall and drop it intohis pocket.

Then he opened the screen door and, descending the porch steps, passedout of her sight.

V

After a while the coat of clean white paint on the Jeffrey Curtainhouse made a definite compromise with the suns of many Julys andshowed its good faith by turning gray. It scaled--huge peelings ofvery brittle old paint leaned over backward like aged men practisinggrotesque gymnastics and finally dropped to a moldy death in theovergrown grass beneath. The paint on the front pillars becamestreaky; the white ball was knocked off the left-hand door-post; thegreen blinds darkened, then lost all pretense of color.

It began to be a house that was avoided by the tender-minded--somechurch bought a lot diagonally opposite for a graveyard, and this,combined with "the place where Mrs. Curtain stays with that livingcorpse," was enough to throw a ghostly aura over that quarter of theroad. Not that she was left alone. Men and women came to see her, mether down town, where she went to do her marketing, brought her home intheir cars--and came in for a moment to talk and to rest, in theglamour that still played in her smile. But men who did not know herno longer followed her with admiring glances in the street; adiaphanous veil had come down over her beauty, destroying itsvividness, yet bringing neither wrinkles nor fat.

She acquired a character in the village--a group of little storieswere told of her: how when the country was frozen over one winter sothat no wagons nor automobiles could travel, she taught herself toskate so that she could make quick time to the grocer and druggist,and not leave Jeffrey alone for long. It was said that every nightsince his paralysis she slept in a small bed beside his bed, holdinghis hand.

Jeffrey Curtain was spoken of as though he were already dead. As theyears dropped by those who had known him died or moved away--therewere but half a dozen of the old crowd who had drunk cocktailstogether, called each other's wives by their first names, and thoughtthat Jeff was about the wittiest and most talented fellow that Marlowehad ever known. How, to the casual visitor, he was merely the reasonthat Mrs. Curtain excused herself sometimes and hurried upstairs; hewas a groan or a sharp cry borne to the silent parlor on the heavy airof a Sunday afternoon.

He could not move; he was stone blind, dumb and totally unconscious.All day he lay in his bed, except for a shift to his wheel-chair everymorning while she straightened the room. His paralysis was creepingslowly toward his heart. At first-for the first year--Roxanne hadreceived the faintest answering pressure sometimes when she held hishand--then it had gone, ceased one evening and never come back, andthrough two nights Roxanne lay wide-eyed, staring into the dark andwondering what had gone, what fraction of his soul had taken flight,what last grain of comprehension those shattered broken nerves stillcarried to the brain.

After that hope died. Had it not been for her unceasing care the lastspark would have gone long before. Every morning she shaved and bathedhim, shifted him with her own hands from bed to chair and back to bed.She was in his room constantly, bearing medicine, straightening apillow, talking to him almost as one talks to a nearly human dog,without hope of response or appreciation, but with the dim persuasionof habit, a prayer when faith has gone.

Not a few people, one celebrated nerve specialist among them, gave hera plain impression that it was futile to exercise so much care, thatif Jeffrey had been conscious he would have wished to die, that if hisspirit were hovering in some wider air it would agree to no suchsacrifice from her, it would fret only for the prison of its body togive it full release.

"But you see," she replied, shaking her head gently, "when I marriedJeffrey it was--until I ceased to love him."

"But," was protested, in effect, "you can't love that."

"I can love what it once was. What else is there for me to do?"

The specialist shrugged his shoulders and went away to say that Mrs.Curtain was a remarkable woman and just about as sweet as anangel--but, he added, it was a terrible pity.

"There must be some man, or a dozen, just crazy to take care ofher...."

Casually--there were. Here and there some one began in hope--and endedin reverence. There was no love in the woman except, strangely enough,for life, for the people in the world, from the tramp to whom she gavefood she could ill afford to the butcher who sold her a cheap cut ofsteak across the meaty board. The other phase was sealed up somewherein that expressionless mummy who lay with his face turned ever towardthe light as mechanically as a compass needle and waited dumbly forthe last wave to wash over his heart.

After eleven years he died in the middle of a May night, when thescent of the syringa hung upon the window-sill and a breeze wafted inthe shrillings of the frogs and cicadas outside. Roxanne awoke at two,and realized with a start she was alone in the house at last.

VI

After that she sat on her weather-beaten porch through manyafternoons, gazing down across the fields that undulated in a slowdescent to the white and green town. She was wondering what she woulddo with her life. She was thirty-six--handsome, strong, and free. Theyears had eaten up Jeffrey's insurance; she had reluctantly partedwith the acres to right and left of her, and had even placed a smallmortgage on the house.

With her husband's death had come a great physical restlessness. Shemissed having to care for him in the morning, she missed her rush totown, and the brief and therefore accentuated neighborly meetings inthe butcher's and grocer's; she missed the cooking for two, thepreparation of delicate liquid food for him. One day, consumed withenergy, she went out and spaded up the whole garden, a thing that hadnot been done for years.

And she was alone at night in the room that had seen the glory of hermarriage and then the pain. To meet Jeff again she went back in spiritto that wonderful year, that intense, passionate absorption andcompanionship, rather than looked forward to a problematical meetinghereafter; she awoke often to lie and wish for that presence besideher--inanimate yet breathing--still Jeff.

One afternoon six months after his death she was sitting on the porch,in a black dress which took away the faintest suggestion of plumpnessfrom her figure. It was Indian summer--golden brown all about her; ahush broken by the sighing of leaves; westward a four o'clock sundripping streaks of red and yellow over a flaming sky. Most of thebirds had gone--only a sparrow that had built itself a nest on thecornice of a pillar kept up an intermittent cheeping varied byoccasional fluttering sallies overhead. Roxanne moved her chair towhere she could watch him and her mind idled drowsily on the bosom ofthe afternoon.

Harry Cromwell was coming out from Chicago to dinner. Since hisdivorce over eight years before he had been a frequent visitor. Theyhad kept up what amounted to a tradition between them: when he arrivedthey would go to look at Jeff; Harry would sit down on the edge of thebed and in a hearty voice ask:

"Well, Jeff, old man, how do you feel to-day?"

Roxanne, standing beside, would look intently at Jeff, dreaming thatsome shadowy recognition of this former friend had passed across thatbroken mind--but the head, pale, carven, would only move slowly in itssole gesture toward the light as if something behind the blind eyeswere groping for another light long since gone out.

These visits stretched over eight years--at Easter, Christmas,Thanksgiving, and on many a Sunday Harry had arrived, paid his call onJeff, and then talked for a long while with Roxanne on the porch. Hewas devoted to her. He made no pretense of hiding, no attempt todeepen, this relation. She was his best friend as the mass of flesh onthe bed there had been his best friend. She was peace, she was rest;she was the past. Of his own tragedy she alone knew.

He had been at the funeral, but since then the company for which heworked had shifted him to the East and only a business trip hadbrought him to the vicinity of Chicago. Roxanne had written him tocome when he could--after a night in the city he had caught a trainout.

They shook hands and he helped her move two rockers together.

"How's George?"

"He's fine, Roxanne. Seems to like school."

"Of course it was the only thing to do, to send him."

"Of course---"

"You miss him horribly, Harry?"

"Yes--I do miss him. He's a funny boy---"

He talked a lot about George. Roxanne was interested. Harry must bringhim out on his next vacation. She had only seen him once in herlife--a child in dirty rompers.

She left him with the newspaper while she prepared dinner--she hadfour chops to-night and some late vegetables from her own garden. Sheput it all on and then called him, and sitting down together theycontinued their talk about George.

"If I had a child--" she would say.

Afterward, Harry having given her what slender advice he could aboutinvestments, they walked through the garden, pausing here and there torecognize what had once been a cement bench or where the tennis courthad lain....

"Do you remember--"

Then they were off on a flood of reminiscences: the day they had takenall the snap-shots and Jeff had been photographed astride the calf;and the sketch Harry had made of Jeff and Roxanne, lying sprawled inthe grass, their heads almost touching. There was to have been acovered lattice connecting the barn-studio with the house, so thatJeff could get there on wet days--the lattice had been started, butnothing remained except a broken triangular piece that still adheredto the house and resembled a battered chicken coop.

"And those mint juleps!"

"And Jeff's note-book! Do you remember how we'd laugh, Harry, whenwe'd get it out of his pocket and read aloud a page of material. Andhow frantic he used to get?"

"Wild! He was such a kid about his writing."

They were both silent a moment, and then Harry said:

"We were to have a place out here, too. Do you remember? We were tobuy the adjoining twenty acres. And the parties we were going tohave!"

Again there was a pause, broken this time by a low question fromRoxanne.

"Do you ever hear of her, Harry?"

"Why--yes," he admitted placidly. "She's in Seattle. She's marriedagain to a man named Horton, a sort of lumber king. He's a great dealolder than she is, I believe."

"And she's behaving?"

"Yes--that is, I've heard so. She has everything, you see. Nothingmuch to do except dress up for this fellow at dinner-time."

"I see."

Without effort he changed the subject.

"Are you going to keep the house?"

"I think so," she said, nodding. "I've lived here so long, Harry, it'dseem terrible to move. I thought of trained nursing, but of coursethat'd mean leaving. I've about decided to be a boarding-house lady."

"Live in one?"

"No. Keep one. Is there such an anomaly as a boarding-house lady?Anyway I'd have a negress and keep about eight people in the summerand two or three, if I can get them, in the winter. Of course I'llhave to have the house repainted and gone over inside."

Harry considered.

"Roxanne, why--naturally you know best what you can do, but it doesseem a shock, Roxanne. You came here as a bride."

"Oh, those biscuits," she cried. "Still, from all I heard about theway you devoured them, they couldn't have been so bad. I was _so_low that day, yet somehow I laughed when the nurse told me about thosebiscuits."

"I noticed that the twelve nail-holes are still in the library wallwhere Jeff drove them."

"Yes."

It was getting very dark now, a crispness settled in the air; a littlegust of wind sent down a last spray of leaves. Roxanne shiveredslightly.

"We'd better go in."

He looked at his watch.

"It's late. I've got to be leaving. I go East tomorrow."

"Must you?"

They lingered for a moment just below the stoop, watching a moon thatseemed full of snow float out of the distance where the lake lay.Summer was gone and now Indian summer. The grass was cold and therewas no mist and no dew. After he left she would go in and light thegas and close the shatters, and he would go down the path and on tothe village. To these two life had come quickly and gone, leaving notbitterness, but pity; not disillusion, but only pain. There wasalready enough moonlight when they shook hands for each to see thegathered kindness in the other's eyes.